


A Presence of Departed Acts

by incognitajones



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, F/M, Jedi Finn, Or Is It?, Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2018-12-05 11:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/incognitajones
Summary: Seven years after Kylo Ren died, Rey crosses paths with him on a backwater planet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to know in advance what (minor) plot element the "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings" is in reference to, see the end notes.

Rey didn’t recognize Kylo Ren’s face at first. But then, she’d only seen him unmasked twice, and the last time had been seven years ago. 

It was his voice that unlocked her memory. She overheard a man bargaining for power converters at the next market booth and her mind stalled out, like a ship that couldn’t make the leap to hyperdrive. Suddenly it was dark. Cold. She was pinned to a metal chair, and he was hissing in her ear.

Rey came back to herself with a shudder she couldn’t repress. Sweat prickled over her chest and back. She moved soft-footed around the other corner of the market stall, slowly and casually, just another bored shopper. From here she was screened by its sagging awning and could turn to look at him. 

She honestly hadn’t thought of Kylo Ren that often since the fall of the First Order. Maybe in the first year or two afterward, when she was still watching for him, waiting for an attack at any moment. But as time passed and his disappearance seemed more and more likely to equal his death—especially since his presence in the Force never reappeared—her fear of him had faded. From time to time she still dreamt of the interrogation chair or their duel, but no more often than she dreamt of the confrontation with Snoke in which she’d lost her hand, or when her X-wing had crashed on Dantooine. Yet the instant she heard his voice, she’d known it in her cells.

Rey was stunned: not surprised, though. She realized she’d never truly believed that he was dead. 

She squinted, trying to align his appearance with her faded memories. His face had more age lines and a harsher brow, but the same was true of Rey. The scar she’d given him was still there, if paler, and she could see traces of others creeping above the neck of his tunic. The strangest part was that he wasn’t wearing black. His washed-out blue tunic looked utterly wrong on him.

Ord Quelu was a dusty backwater, nowhere near the major hyperspace lanes. Its narrow canyons and mesas were beautiful, but the small settlements built into their walls held nothing of particular value to any other planet. Rey was only here because of the wispiest thread of rumour that a holocron she’d been searching for was hidden somewhere in the system. This was quite literally the last place in the galaxy anyone would look for the former Master of the Knights of Ren. Of course, that was probably why he’d chosen it as a hiding place. 

She wrapped the Force around herself cautiously; trying to hide that way could be as good as shouting “Here I am!” to those who were powerful in it. But then, he would suffer from the same disadvantage she had in years of unfamiliarity with her aura. 

To remain concealed for so many years, he must have become a master at muting his signature. She still couldn’t feel him. As soon as she looked away from his physical body, he disappeared. His presence was no more noticeable than any of the other beings in the marketplace who weren't strong in the Force, just one murmur out of hundreds she could hear if she concentrated. 

Which meant this was most likely a trap. He’d deliberately shown himself, baiting her to draw her out or startle her into doing something reckless. 

If he wanted reckless, he’d get it. Rey touched the hilt of her saberstaff in the armguard under her sleeve, a microsecond away from dropping into her grip and igniting. She strode back around the corner of the stall and into the aisle, clipping Kylo with her shoulder as she passed as an excuse to drop the sack in her cybernetic left hand and knock the solar battery parts he was examining to the ground. 

He didn’t even look at her as he turned and bent to pick them up. She stepped back, wary of an attack launched from his crouched position. He only straightened with his arms full—no defense available to him at all—and offered her satchel back to her. “Pardon, domina,” he murmured in the local dialect of Basic. His brown eyes were vaguely polite, uninterested, already flicking back to the stallholder she’d interrupted his bargaining with. 

Rey’s legs refused to move for a moment. Her mouth hung open until she collected herself with a jerk. Mumbling something half-apologetic, she snatched the strap of her bag from Kylo’s hand and forced herself into motion. She ducked into the first shaded alcove she passed and used the Force as a stepping stone for a leap to a small ledge one story above. 

She crouched there, waiting, for twenty minutes before admitting that he wasn't following. If he’d seized the opportunity to fall back and prepare his own ambush, she’d wasted her best chance to find him. 

Cursing her own stupidity, wishing she weren’t alone—having Finn with her would have made hunting Kylo child’s play—she dropped to the ground and headed back into the market square. She kept her senses extended, brushing minds in search of anyone who might be working with Kylo. How long had he been on this world, how many allies did he have? 

He stood in line in front of the next stall she passed, waiting his turn to buy grilled chunks of the local herbivore threaded on a stick. She walked past him without a glance, her mind churning in confusion, her shoulders tensing in anticipation of a blow from behind. Nothing happened. 

She reached out more aggressively with the Force. After all, she’d already lost the element of surprise. It didn’t matter how hard she grasped for him, though, there was nothing there: only a spark of sentience, no brighter than any other in the market. 

Rey needed to get out of here. She needed time to think, to figure out what the seven planets was happening. But she also had to know what Kylo was doing and where he was going. She doubled back to a stall she’d noted earlier as likely to cater to those of high credit worth and dubious morals. Three minutes later she was in possession of a tracking chip more sophisticated than 95 percent of the tech on this world. She’d follow him to whatever ship he was using and tag it. He still might catch her, but she was prepared for a fight. 

She used every milligram of stealth she had to watch Kylo from a distance as he paid for his food and stalked through the market, gnawing on the meat. He must have been in hiding here for a while, or visited fairly often, because a few of the stallholders and shoppers hailed him familiarly. Even a Togruta child ran up and greeted him before darting away through the crowd. What confused her even more was the way he responded, with what looked like sincere (if awkward) smiles. 

Of course, his acting ability must have improved considerably over the years too, since he hadn’t reacted at all to the sight of her. 

He headed out of the market, walking down the canyon toward the spacepad side of town, and Rey cautiously narrowed the distance between them. Her mind raced ahead, picturing the other ships she’d seen when she landed this morning, wondering which of them was his and whether he’d seen the _Falcon_ —had that tipped him off to her presence on the planet? She’d have to sweep it for traps before going anywhere, dammit.

She was so focused on figuring out the best way to check the hyperdrive for tampering that when Kylo pivoted and entered a small building she nearly missed his change in direction. Her steps stuttered and she tripped over a raised plank in the walkway, catching her balance with a whirring swing of her artificial hand. She managed to keep moving past the shabby place while noting every detail she could. It looked like a standalone dwelling, too small to be a multipurpose building or apartment, separated from the equally shabby constructions on either side by only a half-metre of Ord Quelu’s sandy orange soil, bare and hard-packed. As far as she could tell, Kylo was alone inside.

If he’d caught on to her tailing him, he might have decided to use this place to lose her while he changed directions, or to hole up and outwait her.

She made a swift, silent reconaissance—there were no windows big enough to allow him a swift exit and the rear wall was built right up to the stone of the canyon—and then chose a perch on the roof of the taller neighbouring tenement where she could watch every approach at once.

Four hours later Rey was willing to concede that either Kylo Ren was playing a very long game, or something strange was going on. Absolutely nothing had happened. He hadn’t left; no-one else had gone in. There were no windows on this wall so she couldn’t see inside, but judging by the constant hiss of a welding torch interspersed with the occasional muffled curse, he was actually doing some work—possibly on the power converters he’d bought at the market. 

Rey pulled out the fancy tracking chip and rubbed it between her fingers, thinking. The thing was useless now. There was no point in sticking it on the house and no way she could get close enough now to put it on Kylo. Bantha shit! If only she’d been better prepared at the market. But how could she have been prepared for a man to return from the dead?

She changed positions to work out a cramp forming in her right calf. Time to backtrack, regroup, come at this another way. Before she risked a direct confrontation, she had to know more about what Kylo was doing or pretending to do here. She needed backup.

She decided it was worth the calculated risk to return to the _Falcon_ and call Finn. Kylo seemed to be settled in, at least for a while. Of course, he might leave as soon as she did, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. 

And she had to talk to Luke. How had he not known that Kylo was alive?

 

The moment she reached the _Falcon_ , Rey tasked her little nav droid—a BB unit much less quirky than Poe’s, though smart enough—to scan for any tampering it could detect. She’d follow up and go over the ship with a fine-toothed comb before breaking atmo. She tapped out a quick message to Finn as well. She didn’t think it wise to mention Kylo over unsecured channels, so she simply used their codeword for “come at once.”

And then she could finally sink down on the padded bench in the crew lounge, close her eyes and centre herself, and reach for Luke.

It never took long these days. She hadn’t been able to speak with him immediately after Snoke had struck him down; she’d seen his opalescent form shimmering through her tears, seen him smiling and whole again, but it was almost a year before she could understand him. 

“Kylo’s alive. How could you not know?” she demanded as soon as she sensed him in the galley.

Luke rolled his eyes, which was really annoying in a ghost. “As I’ve said many times, Rey, being dead makes me neither omnipotent nor omniscient. It means only that I have a more elemental connection to the Force than a being which still occupies a physical form.”

In death, as in life, Luke was either infuriatingly cryptic or deliberately provocative. He didn’t have any other modes.

“Whatever.” Rey crossed her arms, refusing to be placated. “That still doesn’t answer my question. How could you not sense him in the Force, alive or dead?”

“I don’t know,” Luke admitted. “I never have. Some whom I know are dead remain inaccessible to me for some reason. But Ben… he simply vanished from my senses at the same time Snoke did.” He sighed. “I assumed that meant they had killed each other, or died together, still bound to the dark side.” 

Some of Rey’s research claimed that Force ghosts were supposed to fade eventually and become one with the living Force, but in this—as in so much else—Luke refused to abide by the common wisdom. All these years later, he remained present. Though still as unhelpful as ever. 

“I don’t understand.” Rey’s head ached. She tugged the tie from the end of one of her looped braids and began unpicking it, dragging her fingers through the crimped strands. “It felt like he had no Force sensitivity at all. Is that even possible?”

“For someone to be severed from the Force?” Luke frowned. “Perhaps… although my knowledge of it is theoretical at best. There are no reliable accounts of such a thing. You say he didn’t seem to remember you. I wonder if it might be a consequence of memory loss. Could he simply have forgotten his training?”

“I’m not convinced he didn’t remember me,” Rey muttered, although despite her stubborn resistance to the idea she was beginning to wonder if it might be true. “But in any case, he didn’t even have a presence in the way that someone untrained does. He felt about as Force-sensitive as a—” She casts around for an analogy. “A potato.”

“I can’t imagine Ben as a root vegetable.” An ephemeral smile flickered across Luke’s mouth. “Something truly momentous must have happened to him. How do you propose to find out?” 

“Wait a minute.” Rey peered at him through the loose strands of her hair. “Now that you know he’s alive, can’t you go spy on him? I need to have some idea of what’s happening before Finn gets here.”

Luke’s disappointed look was just as potent as when he was alive; it still made Rey feel like a desert rat. “Even if that were appropriate, Rey, I’ve told you that I’m not a ghost. I can’t compel my presence on someone who isn’t aware of me and at least somewhat willing to converse.” He closed his eyes for a moment; his luminous form wavered and nearly faded for an instant. “But metaphysical considerations aside, the fact remains that as far as I can tell, he’s simply not there.”

Rey slumped back against the worn padding of the bench. “Wonderful. So I have a possibly amnesiac Master of Ren who’s invisible in the Force to deal with. And as usual, you’re no help.”

“You know that you no longer need my help, Rey.” And with that, Luke was gone.

Typical. A huff of exasperation escaped Rey and she yanked the last braid out of her hair harder than she’d meant to. 

Luke hadn’t been around either when she and Finn could most have used his guidance. In the months after his death they’d held each other up, trying to figure out what the last two Force-sensitives in the galaxy were meant to do. They’d spent sleepless nights debating: should they try to recreate the Jedi Order, although neither of them knew any more about it than the scraps of half-remembered lore Luke had passed down? Or give up on it altogether, and use their talents as best they could to rebuild the lives and planets crushed by the war? That was more than enough work to keep them busy for the rest of their lives, Rey would point out. And Finn would counter that that was true, but it would mean leaving all the future Force-sensitives of the galaxy to stumble along in the dark, with no teaching or guidance.

In the end, Rey gave in. They decided to call themselves Jedi, if only because it was the sole name they knew for what they were. But they were not an Order or a Council, she insisted—they weren’t going to set up rules on how people should live or love or use the Force, with the exception of forbidding deliberate harm to others. 

And so much knowledge had been lost. Luke, half-trained as he was, had been the last living connection to all the millennia of tradition the Jedi had once hoarded. So in their rare instances of free time, Finn and Rey chased down whispers of buried archives, flaking frescoes painted to teach younglings, crumbling scrolls and obsolete datapads and holocrons encasing the essence of a long-ago master’s knowledge. It was like trying to build a temple out of sand, watching the wind erase your efforts even as you worked faster and faster.

 

Infuriatingly, Finn refused to believe her. “It can’t be Kylo Ren. You must have made a mistake.”

She glared at him and shoved the memory of the encounter into his head like an unwanted present. “I’m telling you, Finn, it was him. There’s no-one else it could be, unless he had a twin Leia didn’t tell us about.”

Finn’s eyes unfocused as he spooled through the sense-impressions of Kylo she’d passed on to him. He sighed and sagged down into the copilot’s chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “A clone?” 

“With exactly the same scar?” She slashed her finger down her cheek in illustration. “And he’d aged about as much as you’d expect. A clone would almost have to be considerably younger.”

“I just don’t see how it’s possible.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his head in frustration. The first few coils of silver at his hairline caught Rey’s eye—they were all aging too quickly, everyone she knew. Snoke’s death and the defeat of the First Order had ended open war, but keeping the shaky peace that had followed was just as exhausting and, frankly, even harder work.

“I don’t see how either, and I’m not sure I care. The point is what to do with him now.” She braced her heels against the console and tipped her chair back to stare out the viewport above her head. “Do we try and talk to him first, or do we just grab him and take him back to the General for interrogation? Will she even want to see him? In some ways, it’s better for everyone if he stays lost.”

“Getting to her could be what he wants. Maybe it’s a trap.”

“No kidding.” Rey’s voice rose in frustration. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”

Finn shrugged. “It’s simple in that case—if it’s a trap, we capture or kill him. The real complications begin if it’s not. Even if he’s truly ignorant, we have to bring him with us somehow. He’s too dangerous to be running loose around the galaxy.” 

In the ancient, ruddy light of Ord Quelu’s setting sun the whole cockpit looked like it was on fire, or drenched in blood. A shiver ran through Rey’s shoulders when she realized it was exactly the same colour as Kylo’s vicious lightsabre. 

“How could we possibly get him to come willingly?” she hissed. “What would we even tell him?”

“The truth?” Finn raised his eyebrows. “That we know who he is—or was—and that his mother will want to see him.”

“And what else? When do you plan on mentioning that he killed his father?”

They hashed out more and more wildly hypothetical scenarios for hours—just like the old days, when they’d argued constantly about the best thing to do—before the debate sputtered out from exhaustion and lack of facts. In the end, they agreed that the only plan they could make was to find Kylo together and see what happened; his reaction would be the most important variable. 

At least they had each other to rely on. Their time as lovers might have ended long ago, but Rey still loved Finn and always would. 

That night she squeezed in next to him in the berth barely wide enough for two and didn’t sleep. Instead she spent most of the night listening to Finn’s deep rhythmic breathing beside her, wondering what Kylo Ren would do in the morning. Whether she’d finally get the chance to kill him.

 

_He’s cold. That’s the first thing he manages to stay awake long enough to notice. He curls in on himself, wrapping his body around his knees in a futile attempt to hold in some body heat. Eventually the shivers rack him more and more strongly, rippling through his muscles until he’s forced out of the half-sleep he’s been drifting in._

_Wherever he is, it’s bright and cold._ Hoth? _he wonders, and then wonders how he knows that’s an ice planet. He’s never been there._

 _He’s never been_ anywhere _, that he can remember._

_Fear paralyzes him until the cold makes his teeth chatter so hard that he bites his tongue. He has to find something warm to put on. He pushes himself to sit upright, every muscle shaking._

_He’s cold because he’s lying naked on a metal floor. The walls of this place—this ship, part of him insists—look like metal too; everything a dull brushed pewter that reflects nothing but the harsh lighting and the cold. He spots a thin reflective blanket on the floor a few feet away that he drags over with his toes and wraps around his shoulders._

_A medpod is overturned on the other side of the room, its metal frame crushed and dented. Other things are scattered on the floor: hypos, scanners, and the body of a Mandalorian wearing a grey First Order uniform. Its neck is twisted like the medpod. It’s clearly dead._

_How can he know these things—planets, xenos, tools—and not his own name? Or what he’s doing here, in this deserted medbay?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to **englishable** for helping me figure out how to tell this story in a semi-coherent fashion. Any remaining issues are my fault, not hers.
> 
> The title comes from Emily Dickinson, ["Remorse is memory awake"](http://www.bartleby.com/113/1069.html).
> 
>  **CNTW spoiler:** Luke Skywalker is dead as of the beginning of the story and appears as a Force ghost.


	2. Chapter 2

They set out to confront Kylo at sunrise. The floor of the canyon was still dark and shaded, a narrow bar of light reaching only a quarter of the way down its walls, and the market was barely half-awake. Most stall-holders were just arriving or starting to set out their wares; a few of the food vendors were the only ones doing a brisk trade. But walking through the dusty, narrow aisles, Rey could see that someone must have recognized her yesterday. Word had clearly travelled about the Jedi being on-planet. Conversation fell to murmurs or ceased entirely as they passed. Everyone seemed to be watching them from the corner of their eyes, or aiming various sensory appendages in their direction.

Finn stared straight back at the observers, daring them to say something. Rey tried to walk taller and seem more intimidating. Not for the first time, she wished she could hide behind a mask—but that wasn’t appropriate for a Jedi. She wore goggles and hoods when she could, or blurred memories and recordings; still, her face and Finn’s were too well-known now for comfort. She’d preferred it when she was truly no-one.

A susurrus of whispered speculation trailed behind them. Rey figured by the time they entered Kylo’s house, the rumour engine would be going into hyperdrive. What would the watchers make of whatever happened next: a brawl? A full-on Force battle? Or would Kylo come with them meekly? She snorted at the thought. 

Finn looked at her curiously and she shrugged, coming to a halt. She gestured to the squat, shabby building across the street. “That’s the place.” There was one person inside, but Kylo’s presence didn’t feel any stronger to her than it had yesterday—just an unremarkable spark of sentience, dulled even more by sleep.

There was no point in subtlety. Either Kylo was, somehow, truly ignorant of who and what he was, or he had managed to lure them into a trap. In that case they’d have to hope that the advantage of numbers would hold. 

Rey stepped up to the door, the boards of the walkway creaking under her feet. She unclipped her saberstaff and gripped it ready to ignite, nodding at Finn. He lifted his hand and concentrated on the lock inside the door. It was strong, but simple—surprisingly easy to nudge open. 

The door swung open.

The single open space was dim and cluttered with the detritus of a repair shop; the scavenger in Rey recognized tools, fittings, and parts for a dozen different speeders. A half-restored Minchin 8400 was propped up on blocks in a corner. A battered one-piece kitchen module from a galaxy yacht stood along the back wall, beside a cot layered with blankets covering Kylo's sleeping body. 

Except it wasn’t Kylo on the cot. The person who bolted upright at the sound of the door was a young human female. Black curly hair, brown skin a few shades lighter than Finn’s, grey eyes—Rey took her appearance in at a glance, along with the blaster she’d pulled out from under her pillow and was pointing steadily at them.

“What the kark do you want?” the girl snarled.

It was hard to guess her exact age; she had the lean, underfed look and suspicious eyes of the other strays and orphans Rey had grown up alongside on Jakku. Surely she was too old to be Kylo’s child, and too young to be anything else. What was she doing here?

“We’re just here to talk to the big fellow,” Finn said soothingly. “Nothing to do with you.” He stepped forward, hands out and open. 

“You mean Lem?” The girl’s finger slid closer to the trigger button. “He don’t owe Mik nothing right now, and he’s got nothing worth stealing neither. So get out before I burn a hole right through you.”

“Where is he?” Rey demanded, hands tightening around the hilt of her weapon, furious at herself for being fooled. Some Jedi she was, if she couldn’t even track her nemesis. She wasn’t worried about the girl’s blaster; she could sense that Finn had already disabled its firing mechanism.

“Right here.”

Rey spun to face the door. Kylo’s tall silhouette loomed there, outlined by the light of the rising sun. He seemed unarmed, but one hand held a small paper bag. Panicked, she lashed out to slam the door shut behind him and clamp a hold around Kylo’s torso, immobilizing him from the neck down. He sucked in a breath of shock and she froze his throat as well until he couldn’t speak; the darkening flush on his cheeks showed that he couldn’t breathe either. His fingers twitched and the bag fell to the floor. The terror on his face sent a dark, poisoned satisfaction thrilling through her.

“Rey.” Finn’s quiet voice grounded her. “Careful.”

She gulped an unsteady draft of desperately needed air and managed to loosen her grip just enough to let Kylo breathe as well. He gasped in an echo of her own ragged breath and tried to speak, his mouth working. But she wouldn’t allow him that.

“Lem!” the girl shrieked. Her finger clicked on the blaster trigger, but when no bolt fired she threw it aside, leapt up from the cot and launched herself at Rey, a short knife appearing in her hand. Finn intercepted her too quickly for the eye to see. He was gentle at first, but the girl was strong and fierce enough that in the end he had to resort to twisting both of her arms behind her back before he could disarm her and kick the knife away.

Shavit. This was not what Rey had expected—any of it. They no longer had the advantage of two on one, and they had no idea what either the girl or Kylo were capable of. She looked at Finn and saw the tension in his face and taut shoulders mirroring her own. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Rey cleared her throat, praying Kylo couldn’t hear the fear in her tight voice. “We’re going to release both of you and you’re going to sit down. There’s no point in attacking us because you’ve just seen it won’t work. All we want right now is a short conversation. Okay?”

The girl jerked her chin down once, resentment burning in her eyes. Rey saw and respected the feral aggression of a fellow survivor. They’d have to watch her carefully, if she was this misguidedly loyal to Kylo. 

“Let her go. I’ll do whatever you want.” Hoarse and raspy, Kylo’s voice sounded too much as it had when it was filtered through his faceless mask. Rey shuddered.

“I’m sorry.” Finn even sounded sincere. “We can’t risk her bringing back any friends you might have around.”

The girl laughed. “You don’t know much about this place, do you? No-one’s going to help us.”

“Shut up, Siniran.” Kylo glared at her. “Let me handle this.”

She rolled her eyes, but stayed silent.

“Sit down over there.” Rey pointed to a stool by the workbench. She loosed her grip on Kylo’s muscles and he shuffled past her as she backed up to stay out of the reach of his long arms. “And you, back on the cot.” 

Finn kept hold of Siniran’s arms as he guided her across the room. When he released her she thumped heavily down, rubbing her wrists and staring balefully at Rey.

“What’s in the bag?” Finn asked, looking at the sack Kylo had dropped. 

“Breakfast.” Kylo propped his heels on the bottom rung of the stool and leaned back against the table, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Rey clipped her saberstaff to her belt, sidled over and snatched the bag up from the floor. She peered inside, almost disappointed to find that Kylo had told the truth—there was nothing inside but four ortilak berry pastries. Her stomach growled.

“Help yourself.” Kylo’s voice was sardonic. 

Rey ignored him and held the bag out to Siniran, who grabbed it and stuffed one of the pastries whole into her mouth. Crumbs flecked her chin.

The girl might be useful after all; maybe they could use her as a wedge to lever the truth out. 

“You called him Lem. Do you know his real name?” Rey jerked her head at Kylo.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the girl mumbled around a mouthful of dough.

“Tell me how you met him and who he is.” Rey noted the girl’s skinny wrists and the sharp line of her collarbone pressing through skin. Clearly she didn’t get to eat like this often. “I’ll know if you’re not telling the truth.”

“Yeah, right. You some kind of magician?” Siniran’s narrow gaze was still hot with hostility.

“They’re Jedi.” 

Kylo’s deep voice startled Rey. She glanced over at him, but he hadn’t moved. He stared at Finn, something unreadable in his eyes. “You’ve heard the stories, now here they are in the flesh. Commander Finn, the defector who brought down the First Order, and Rey of Jakku, Skywalker’s apprentice, killer of the Supreme Leader.”

The instinctive protest that she hadn't killed Snoke rose to Rey's lips, as always, and as always she choked it back. It didn't matter what people thought.

Siniran’s face went blank with stunned disbelief. “They’re real?”

“Apparently.”

She looked from Rey to Finn and back again, her mouth wide. A flake of pastry dropped onto her thigh. 

“Go ahead, Siniran,” Kylo said quietly. “Tell them what they want to know and they’ll let you go. Right?” He challenged Rey with a direct look.

“We won’t hurt her. I promise.” Kylo’s stare told her that he’d noticed her sidestep any commitment to let Siniran go, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Fine.” Siniran snatched up a second pastry and swallowed half of it hastily. “I met this bantha brain—was it five years ago?” She looked at Kylo.

“Six.”

“He was getting his ass kicked by some of Mik’s goons in a dark corner of the market. I persuaded them not to kill him, told them he was harmless.”

“Why?” Finn asked. Rey wondered the same thing; Siniran didn’t strike her as particularly selfless.

The girl flushed and stared at the floor. “He’d seen me stealing food in the market before. He used to buy some and leave it out where I could take it.”

Kylo stirred and his lips parted as though he might speak. Rey shifted a half-step closer. But he shut his mouth and settled back against the workbench without saying anything. 

Siniran went on. “After Mik’s guys left, I helped him back here and cleaned him up. He said I could stay here when I needed a place to crash. He told me his name was Lem and that I should quit stealing. But he didn’t have any bright ideas for how else I was supposed to make a living.” 

She cut her eyes sideways at Kylo, who rolled his. Clearly this was an old, familiar argument. “Can I have your breakfast too?” she asked Kylo.

“Fine.” He waved a hand, and Siniran dove into the bag for a third pastry. 

It didn’t seem a very likely story—Kylo Ren feeding a homeless kid out of pure altruism?—but Rey couldn’t detect any signs of deception in Siniran, or anything other than a strong desire to finish off all of the pastries.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re looking for me? Or who it is you think I am?” Kylo raised an eyebrow, still leaning nonchalantly, but there was tension hiding in the muscles of his back.

Rey was about to answer him but Finn spoke first. “We think there’s a good chance you could be a man called Ben Solo.”

“Who the kriff is that?” Siniran tilted her head. 

Kylo frowned, as though the name were vaguely familiar. “Any relation to that dead starship racer? The one who used to be a smuggler?”

Rey glared at Finn and gave him a mental shove. _What was_ that _for?_

Finn winked at her. _It’ll be easier this way. Trust me._ Aloud he said, “Han Solo’s son, yes. His mother is Leia Organa, the former Princess and Senator from Alderaan who fought in the first Rebel Alliance and then founded the Resistance.”

Kylo’s frown deepened and he crossed his arms over his chest again. “So what happened to this Ben Solo?”

“No-one knows for sure.” Finn shrugged. “About twenty years ago he was travelling in the Outer Rim with his uncle, Luke Skywalker, when they both disappeared. All sorts of rumours flew, but even after Skywalker resurfaced he wouldn’t say exactly what happened.” 

Rey blinked and tried to look knowing instead of stunned. It was almost admirable, how skillfully Finn could manage to lie without speaking a single word of untruth.

Siniran’s mouth hung open. “You mean this loser is a _prince_? Or a Jedi?”

That was enough of that. “No,” Rey snapped. “Leia is a General now, not a princess. She doesn’t use the title anymore. And whoever _Lem_ might be”—she stressed the false name scornfully—“he doesn’t seem to have any Force ability.”

Finn didn’t move, but he squared his shoulders and suddenly occupied much more space in the room than he had a second ago. Despite the fact that he was a good half a foot shorter than Kylo, he seemed every bit as intimidating. “You don’t seem very surprised to find two strangers at your door asking who you are,” he said mildly. “I wonder why that is?”

“I’ve been looking over my shoulder for years, waiting for someone to find me.” Kylo couldn’t hold Finn’s gaze; he lowered his head, shoving a hand through his shaggy hair and disarranging it even further. “Because I don’t remember anything. Seven years ago I woke up in a star destroyer’s medbay with no idea who I was.”

“Really.” Rey didn’t try to conceal her skepticism. “And you never even tried to find out?”

He shrugged. “How? The ship was abandoned, there was no-one else on board. I had enough to worry about finding a way to live with no credits, no identification...”

“Holy shavit!” Siniran’s eyes were round and amazed. “You don’t know who you are? Maybe you _were_ a Jedi!”

Rey snorted. “Trust me, he was not.”

“I assumed something must have happened to me during the war.” Kylo was still staring down at the dusty duracrete floor. “But considering the possibilities, I wasn’t in a hurry to find out exactly what.”

 

_He doesn't know how long he stays there on the floor, huddled in the shiny, rustling survival sheet. There are no chronometer readouts that he can see anywhere in the room. Cramps twisting through his bowels spur him to move at last. He struggles to his feet, pushing himself upright against the slick metal wall, his fingers splayed over it for purchase._

_An opening in one of the walls reveals a stark white lavatory. He crouches before the toilet for a long moment until he realizes he’s not going to vomit; the torsion in his belly is hunger. He stands up—it’s marginally easier this time—and turns the sink spigot on, bending to shove his head underneath it and gulp mouthfuls of lukewarm, tinny water. He scoops water over his head, plastering long strands to his neck. Movement flickers in his peripheral vision and he jumps back, scraping his scalp on the metal spout. He raises a hand to touch the abrasion and sees his reflection staring at him from the mirror above the basin._

_Black hair hangs lank and dripping almost to his shoulders. Fungus-pale skin covered with dark moles would be ugly enough without the pale pink furrow slicing diagonally across his face in a deepening trench. He touches the divot in his jawline with a shaking fingertip. It looks at least a few years old, and he has no clue how he got it._

_He winces and looks down at his naked body. His long, skinny limbs are also scarred, and muscular enough that he must have done some kind of physical training at some point. Is he a soldier? That would explain why he’s in a military medbay—but where is everyone else?_

_He looks up again and stares into the panicked brown eyes in the mirror. They tell him nothing._

_“Attention.” A recorded voice blares and red lights in the ceiling start to flash. He jumps again, fingers tightening on the sides of the basin. “This is an evacuation alert. All personnel, report to your assigned lifepod stations. Attention. This is an evacuation alert—” The droning electronic voice repeats over and over and over, beating in his skull until he wants to scream._

_He has to get off this ship._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's alive! 
> 
> Apologies for the extended wait; I didn't (obviously) manage to finish this before _The Last Jedi_ came out, and then for a while I debated whether I should revise my plot outline to be compliant with the events of that movie. In the end, I decided that would introduce too many complications, so this is now definitely an AU which diverges from canon after _The Force Awakens_.

Rey stared at Kylo, her mind churning with confusion. Was he telling the truth as he knew it? His story was completely ridiculous, on the face of it—but it was just barely possible. And he certainly seemed convinced of it. His body and mind betrayed none of the usual signs of someone lying.

Rey had learned just enough about the more esoteric aspects of the Force to know that she understood only a fraction of what someone truly powerful could do; Snoke might have well have been capable of deleting Kylo’s memories like a droid’s datacore. But why would he have maimed his most useful tool? Perhaps this memory loss had happened to Kylo accidentally somehow, and he’d simply been discarded as useless.

But that didn’t explain the lack of Force sensitivity. Even if Kylo lost his memories, wouldn’t he retain that potential? 

Maybe the man in front of her was a clone, or some kind of weird lab-created doppelganger. Who knew what the First Order might have attempted in their last, desperate months? Starkiller Base showed that they’d been been willing to sink vast resources into experimental weapons, and they’d explored truly disturbing means of creating storm troopers—after the war ended, some of the things she and Finn had discovered in data banks had turned her stomach. 

She sent a questioning poke to Finn, who responded with a mental shrug. He didn’t see any reason not to go along with this—for now. Acting as though they believed him would be the easiest way to get Kylo’s co-operation.

Kylo had been silent all this time, looking back and forth between her and Finn with a flat, hooded gaze. Now he shifted on the stool, folding his arms in front of his chest again. “I want to talk to the two of you alone,” he said, his tone much too peremptory for someone in his position as far as Rey was concerned. “Can Siniran leave for a few minutes? Are you convinced that she won’t bring back reinforcements?”

Rey glanced over at the girl, still sitting bolt upright on the cot, wide-eyed with amazement.

“No,” Finn said. “But I’ll go with her, and you can talk to Rey. I’m sure you know better than to mess with her, but just in case there’s any doubt, let me be clear: she could put you down with both hands tied behind her back.”

He turned and held out a hand to Siniran. “Why don’t you show me where I can buy some breakfast? You’re the only one who’s eaten so far this morning, and all of us are hungry. We’ll bring food back for everyone.”

Siniran curled her lip and eyed Finn’s hand as though it were the tentacle of a Bor Gullet. Without taking it, she stood up and walked in a wide arc around him to the door. She paused in the open doorway and turned her glare on Rey. “Lem had better still be here when I get back.” 

Finn herded her out the door and followed with a cheerful wave over his shoulder. “I’ll get some of those porg eggs you like, Rey.”

Rey and Kylo—Lem—whoever—were left to stare at each other across the dingy room. She crossed her arms in front of her, realized she was echoing his posture, and straightened up, curling her hands into fists at her side. She didn’t speak; she wanted him to have plenty of flying room to maneuver himself into an asteroid field. Maybe he’d finally slip up and give something away.

In the end, he just sighed and dropped his head to look at the floor. "If you're going to kill me, do it now,” he said. "I'd rather Siniran wasn't around for that. And let her go; she doesn’t know anything more than she told you."

"I’m not going to kill you. I don't know why you'd jump to that conclusion,” she blustered, although she'd been prepared to do just that only a few hours earlier. But she didn’t want to kill someone who wasn't a threat in cold blood—and at the moment, Kylo didn't seem to be a threat. He either seriously believed he was Lem, or he was committed enough to the deception to remain compliant for now.

Kylo simply looked back up at her, one eyebrow raised, and the wordless sarcasm made him resemble Han Solo so strongly that she held in a gasp. 

"You don't seem very happy to have found someone who's been gone for twenty years," he pointed out. "And I haven't seen any missing person notices for someone who could be me plastered all over the holonet. Believe me, I looked for them at first."

He got down from the stool slowly, and Rey's fingers twitched, preparing to slam him backward with Force if necessary. He raised the other eyebrow, and jerked his chin at her hands. "You came in here expecting trouble, and you're still ready to crack my head against the wall if I come within a metre of you." 

Kriff. Obviously, Rey wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping her cool and allaying his suspicions.

"So if I’m Ben Solo, why aren't you thrilled about it? Why has no-one been looking for him? What did he do?"

Once again Rey cursed Finn's bright idea to prevaricate. “Ben was... estranged from his parents when he disappeared," she said slowly, trying to think one step ahead and figure out how to say as little as possible. "Then the war started, and General Organa was busy leading the Resistance. There wasn't much time to run a missing person search."

"And Luke Skywalker is dead now, so no-one else knows what happened," Kylo said. "Very convenient." His expression was skeptical, his dark eyes familiar, his face still marked by the scar she'd slashed across it. “Did you know this Ben person?”

“No.” Rey felt herself flush and cursed her all-too open face.

He sighed and looked away toward the kitchen module. “I need a cup of caf,” he said. “Are you going to let me use the kitchen?”

“Wait,” Rey told him. She took two sideways steps and flicked every cupboard door and drawer open quickly, watching Kylo out of the corner of her eye while she searched. No weapons, nothing suspicious, just a scanty collection of vacuum-packed staples. Apparently Kylo liked to splurge on expensive caf, though. 

She stepped away and waved him forward. He gave her a judiciously wide berth, moving slowly and making sure his hands were visible while he took out the bag of beans, a grinder, and a brewing pot. The burring whine of the grinder made further conversation impossible for a moment. Once the noise cut off Kylo measured the grounds into the glass pot, keeping his back to her. “So were you still searching for Ben Solo, or was this all just a coincidence?” 

“I thought he was dead,” Rey said, surprised into honesty. “But then I caught sight of you yesterday...”

“The market, right.” He looked at her over his shoulder and nodded. “I thought you were a pickpocket. You were acting pretty suspicious.”

Rey couldn’t help a half-smile. 

He turned back and concentrated on pouring hot water slowly over the grounds. The rich, toasted aroma of brewing caf permeated the room. Her mouth watered and suddenly she desperately wanted a cup. 

"If you're not going to kill me, then what do you want?" he asked, without looking up.

That was the crux of the matter, and Rey still didn't have an answer. The point Finn had argued still held: Kylo Ren was too dangerous to be left to wander around the galaxy on his own. If she'd found him once, others could again. This tall man puttering in his galley kitchen, who looked and moved and spoke like Kylo Ren—even if he was nothing but a shallow mud puddle in the Force compared to the seething whirlpool Kylo had been—they had to know at least _what_ he was, if not who.

She tried to sound kind. "I think you need to come with us. At least for a short time. There must be tests that can be done... some way to find out if you are who we think you are."

He gripped the edge of the counter with both hands, and his shoulders slumped into a defeated line. "Can't you just leave me alone?" 

The plaintive question sounded sincere and for a moment, Rey almost felt sympathy for him. "No," she said firmly. "It's not safe." She didn’t specify for whom.

“So where are you going to take me?” 

Another good question she had no idea how to answer. She wasn’t about to take him directly to Leia, or any of the New Republic’s other leaders for that matter. “I’m not sure yet. Finn and I will have to figure something out.” She hesitated. Even if he was lying, she’d expect him to feign some interest in his origins. "Aren't you curious about your mother?”

"Will she even want to see me?" He reached up to a high shelf for two battered tin mugs. "If we were, as you said, estranged?"

Rey snorted. “Oh, she’ll want to see you.” And again, that much was true regardless of all the unspoken qualifications surrounding it. "If she knew we'd found you, Leia would already be on the comm demanding that we drag you onto the next ship bound for—her home." She remembered to hold back the location at the last minute.

And suddenly, Rey was furious. If "Lem" really couldn’t remember who he was, he'd suddenly been presented with both an identity and a mother. Why wasn't he jumping at the chance to be reunited with her? Rey would have given both of her hands for that when she was scratching out a living on Jakku. Of course, things were more complicated, but there was no reason for him to know that... again, if he was telling the truth.

He held out a mug of caf, warm and steaming in the cool morning air. She took it automatically, and just as automatically waited for him to drink first before sipping hers. It was good: rich and dark.

Kylo drank half his mug in one swallow. He stared into the vague middle distance and rubbed one hand along his chin, rasping over the stubble. “I’ll come along and I won’t give you any trouble. But I want something in return.”

Of course. Rey sighed. “I can't promise much. The New Republic isn't rich, but maybe we could arrange a little compensation for you,” she said cautiously.

“I don't want _money_.” The grievous offense in his tone would have been amusing in any other setting; it seemed that you couldn’t take the snob out of Kylo Ren, even if his memories had been wiped. “I want you to take Siniran too.”

“What?” That was quite possibly the last condition Rey had expected him to set. “Why?” 

Kylo rolled his near-empty mug around in his fingers. In his massive hands, it looked like a doll’s accessory. “She talks a good game, and she’s tough. But she’s reaching an age at which petty crime won’t be enough to keep her fed any more. I’d rather she didn’t have to become a gangster.” He looked up and met her eyes directly, almost pleading. “Doesn’t the New Republic have room for one more kid in those fancy vocational schools I keep hearing about?”

“Are you sure she’s not your daughter?” Rey eyed him suspiciously. 

“She’s not,” he snapped.

“If she wants to come, fine. I’m not going to kidnap her,” Rey said. “Does she have any family here? Parents, siblings who might want to leave too?”

Kylo shook his head, hair swinging free and concealing those ridiculous ears of his. “No. At least, she told me she didn’t, and I’ve never seen her with anyone that looked like a relative.”

“Why isn’t she going to school already? There's one on planet.” 

So many former stormtroopers and trainees had been jettisoned on the galaxy after the war that something had to be done with them; leaving them to fend for themselves alone would only create another angry, disadvantaged generation ripe for another First Order to come along and mobilize, if the New Republic had nothing to offer them. Leia wasn’t the Chancellor; that was Statura, a war hero who’d made the transition into politics far more gracefully. She’d declared that her life in politics was over, she didn’t have enough patience for the bullshit anymore—but she kept a hand in, advising Statura and his staff. And a former aide of hers, Kaydel Ko Connix, administered a sprawling network of creches, schools, and vocational academies that were supposed to help youth displaced by the war. 

Kylo looked at Rey with disdain for her idiocy. “Mik told her she owed him for taking her in as a kid and couldn’t leave until she paid him back. And somehow the bill never quite went down to zero.”

Of course. Rey rubbed her temples, feeling the vise of frustration tightening. People like Unkar Plutt and Mik would always be around to prey on weaker beings; they’d never go away. Once again she wished for unlimited money and energy and time… if only she and Finn had at least a few more Jedi to help. They could barely manage responding to a fraction of the pleas for assistance they got.

There was one school on Takodana where they tried to send the kids who seemed to have a touch of Force sensitivity. Maz Kanata taught them a little, and if they wanted to know more than that, Rey and Finn tried to teach them too. But again, there was never the time to set up a full Praxeum.

Rey was being pulled apart in sixteen different directions, each task seemingly more important than the last. During the war, at least there’d been a focus: stop the First Order while trying not to get killed herself.

And now here she was, wasting time with her old enemy. Rey curled her lip. If it weren’t for Leia she’d have been ready to argue with Finn that they should just leave Kylo to rot on Ord Quelu. If he wasn’t doing anything but hiding out, why not ignore him?

She sighed and knew that would never have happened. Once she’d recognized him, Rey could no more have ignored him than forgotten who he was.

Siniran burst through the door at that moment like a stampeding bantha, waving a disposable drinking bulb. “Finn got me hot chocolate! _You_ never buy me hot chocolate.”

“It’ll rot your teeth.” The response had the rote quality of a fussy parent’s often-repeated saying. Rey choked on a mouthful of caf. 

“Shut up and drink your nasty caf,” Siniran advised him sweetly.

Finn followed her through the door, balancing a towering pile of bags and boxes with one hand and the Force. “I think we bought out most of the food stalls. No porg eggs, but there’s some local sausage you might like, Rey.”

Kylo stepped away from the workbench and Finn dumped the armful of takeout on the surface.

“I’ll take some of that caf, please,” Finn said with a glance at Rey. _What did he want to talk about? Any progress?_ She shrugged and shaped her mouth into a noncommittal twist. Kylo poured out a third mug and Finn tipped in the huge double handful of sweetener that he required. 

_He wants us to bring Siniran along too,_ Rey informed Finn. She glanced over at the girl, but Siniran had seated herself on the only stool and was setting out three meals’ worth of food in front of herself, apparently intent on eating her own body weight as quickly as she could. Kylo had extracted one roll from the pile and was chewing on it as he helped her get out more food.

“Can we risk it?” Finn murmured, turning his cheek close to hers. 

“I think we have to. He’s right, it’s not a good place to leave her. But where can we take them?” She gulped down another mouthful of caf. _I don’t want him on the same planet as Leia until we’ve managed to figure out whether he’s a threat to her._

 _Yeah, no._ Aloud Finn said, “A repatriation camp would be best. Is there a New Republic vessel we could meet up with?” _Who’s left that would recognize him, other than you and me and the General?_

“Probably.” Rey agreed. She cupped both hands around her mug and thought about it. _Chewie’s on Kashyyyk, Poe’s busy on Coruscant… if we take him to_ Home One, _it should be safe enough. Nobody stationed on it will know him. And the ship has a secure holocomm to contact Leia._ “But how do we explain the two of them?”

“He must have some kind of fake identity to have managed this long. We can come up with something for Siniran as well, just say that we ran across a family on Ord Quelu who needed help.”

“Tests,” Rey said abruptly, lifting her head to stare at Kylo again. “We have to find someone who can run tests on him. Discreetly.” _Who’s in medical on_ Home One? _Can we trust them?_

“No idea.” Finn tapped his lower lip with a finger, considering. _We might have to make them forget._

Rey sighed. 

“I know, I know,” he said with a grimace. _But even Luke said that was sometimes the preferable option._

 

Siniran watched the ramp of the _Falcon_ lower heavily to the ground, its aging hydraulics creaking, with a skeptical eye. “What a pile of shavit.”

Finn grinned. “You said it.”

Rey looked at Kylo, who stared back blankly. “What?”

Well, either he truly didn’t remember anything or he wasn’t going to break character that easily. Still, something in Rey had expected him to react to the sight of the _Falcon_. Kylo Ren had been deeply offended at the fact that Chewie had loaned it to her on more or less a permanent basis once the Wookiee returned to Kashyyykk. He’d taunted her about her piece of junk ship more than once while their burning blades were locked together, centimetres from her face. 

“She flies better than she looks,” Rey said defensively, and stomped up the ramp to start the preflight sequence.

Once they were in hyperspace, Siniran warmed up to the ship quickly. She darted through the corridors, inspecting all of the nooks and crevices, and Finn showed her a few of the more obvious smuggling compartments. She sampled all of the rations on board, pronouncing them “pretty tasty.” 

Rey shuddered. Her palate might not be discriminating even now, but she couldn’t help remembering the days when reconstituted bread was the height of luxury to her. She vowed to make sure Siniran got something really good to eat as soon as they docked on _Home One_.

“Where are we going?” the girl asked.

“A bigger ship first,” Finn said. “We’ll meet up with some friends there and figure out where you can go to school. Until then, if anyone asks, Lem is your father.”

Siniran snorted but didn’t have any further comment.

Kylo—Lem, Rey reminded herself, she had to get used to his alias—was much less comfortable. He hid his nervousness fairly well, but she could read it in his stiff posture and the way his neck drew back awkwardly like a wading bird’s. He showed no interest in roaming the _Falcon_. In fact, he stayed in the tiny cabin Rey had hastily cleared out for him and hardly set foot outside it.

Fortunately, once they had hailed _Home One_ and set a rendezvous point, it wasn’t a long trip. 

 

“Two of my most difficult patients at once? This is an unusual sight.” Doctor Kalonia leaned back in her office chair and smiled. “Take a seat. Having any trouble with the implants, Commander Finn? Or is there an interface issue with your prosthesis, Rey?”

Finn grinned at her, sitting down in a shabby office chair that looked like it dated back to the original Rebellion era. “Nope, but I still can’t stand cold weather. It makes them stiff.”

“I’ve told you that’s psychosomatic.” Kalonia shook her head at him, but her smile was still warm.

“We’re here to ask a favour.” Rey remained standing; she liked Kalonia, but they didn’t have time for fond chit-chat. Rey pulled a vial out of her pocket and held it out to the doctor. “We need to know whether a certain person is genetically related to someone. And if the answer is what I think it will be, it’s vital to keep it secret.” 

“I’m not in the habit of sharing confidential patient information.” Kalonia frowned. “And why isn’t this person here? Did you acquire this sample with their consent?”

“Yes,” Rey said. “But again, you shouldn’t know who we’re talking about. The less you know, the better.”

“It could have security implications. Huge ones.” Finn leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and fixing Kalonia with a grave stare. “You can’t document this anywhere it could be sliced into. Make sure you run the tests and analyze the results off the holonet.”

“I see,” the doctor said slowly. “Who am I testing for a relationship?” She held out her hand, and Rey dropped the vial into it with a sense of relief.

She had been careful to collect more than one of Lem’s hairs, and a swab from the inside of his mouth as well. “These samples are all from one person. Just tell us whether they’re related to Leia Organa.”

Kalonia looked at the dark hair in the vial and raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t ask,” Rey warned her. “I can’t tell you anything else.” 

“Are we going to have to request a sample from Leia? Or do you have access to her genetic profile?” Finn asked.

“I can get it. But if I have to download it and run the test off the grid, it’ll take longer,” Kalonia said. She rotated the vial in her hand, staring at it.

“How long, exactly?” Rey demanded.

“To grow the culture matrix and run the tests, two standard days. To do it all on my own and without anyone else finding out… let’s say five.” She slipped the vial into the pocket of her uniform coat.

Rey grimaced. By then they’d be nearly at the limit of the time they could spend on _Home One_ without raising questions. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Secrecy was more important than speed.

“One more question. Is there any way to tell whether these samples came from a clone?” Finn asked.

Kalonia was obviously fighting to keep her expression neutral. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I’m not up on all of the latest forensic and genetic tests. I’ll do some research—quietly,” she added before Rey could remind her, “and see what I can suggest.”

 

“This better be important, you two. I hate trying to remember my encryption key for this thing.” Leia’s disembodied voice floated through the briefing room room while the secure holoprojector was still decrypting her image from a block of jumbled pixels. 

Rey looked down, tucking away a smile at Leia’s familiar acerbity. “It is. And as I warned you, it’s also very sensitive. Are you alone?”

“Yes. Just get to the point, Rey. I’m old, I could die before you manage to spit it out.” Her image stuttered into view, the familiar crown of braids and severely tailored robes rendered in washed-out blue and grey rather than colour thanks to the heavy encryption.

“Fine. But if you have a heart attack, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Rey beckoned Lem over to stand in the field of the holoprojector pickup. He brushed close to her as he passed, his massive frame overshadowing her. She stepped back hastily to give him room and spoke into the air, hoping the mic would still pick up her voice.

“I found this man on Ord Quelu three days ago.”

Leia grabbed at the corner of her desk for support, her spine wobbling out of its regal posture. Rey hadn’t seen her look so vulnerable in years—not since Luke’s death. Even in the badly bleached signal, it was obvious that her face had gone flat white and pale.

“Ben?” she whispered. “Is it you?”

Ben, Lem, Kylo—the man stared up at her glowing projection with an intense hunger in his eyes that Rey couldn’t interpret. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He says he can’t remember anything before seven years ago,” Finn said, his tone clearly signalling how dubious of that claim he was.

Leia sat down heavily, her face falling out of focus for a moment before the camera compensated for the change in distance. Her hand reached toward the lens, appearing as a blurry claw, and Kylo flinched. “Have you…” She swallowed. “Is there any evidence, one way or the other?”

“Kalonia’s running a DNA profile of the two of you,” Rey said. “That will take a few days, but it should tell us whether you’re genetically related.”

“But not whether he’s really Ben?” Leia’s fingers tightened on the handle of her cane.

“No. At least not right away. There may be further options, depending on what Kalonia can find out.”

Leia’s face had regained her usual skillfully-maintained composure, but she was still staring at Lem. “What do you think?” she asked him directly. Rey’s heart cracked at the hesitant softness in her voice.

He hadn’t looked away from her virtual form since it flickered into sight either. “I… I feel like I want it to be true. But that’s probably just the power of suggestion.”

“Probably,” Leia agreed. “It’s also exactly what my son would have said. What does Luke have to say about it?” she asked, keeping her eyes focused on Lem so that it took Rey a moment to realize she was being addressed.

“Nothing helpful, as usual,” Rey grumbled.

“That’s my brother for you.” One corner of Leia’s mouth curved up in a sardonic smile that mirrored an expression Rey had seen on Lem’s face many times already, and on Kylo’s years ago.

“Bring him to me,” she ordered, her voice clipped and brusque. 

“It’s not safe—” Finn protested, as Rey stepped forward instinctively to argue, but Leia held up one hand in a quick, firm gesture cutting off further opposition.

“I want to meet him in person. The two of you can come along to protect me if you must, but bring him. And forward me everything you know about him, immediately.” Leia braced herself on her cane and stood, reaching across the screen to smack the off button and disintegrating into a shower of pixels.

 

_He stumbles through the corridors of the ship, following the flashing red lights embedded in the deck. The flimsy plastifoil blanket is all he has to cover him; he wraps it around his torso and holds it in place with one hand._

_All of the corridors are long, dark except for the emergency lighting, and empty. At one junction another body lies crumpled. Despite the blaring alarms, he takes a moment to check, but the person—a human woman, this time—is dead. No pulse, no breath, and no wound on her that he can see. Only a trickle of blood from one ear tracing a dark crimson line down her cheek._

_He looks at her face for longer than he should given the increasing shrillness of the alarms making his head ring. She’s young; very young. A white helmet lies discarded on the floor by her head, and she wears the matching white plastoid armor of a stormtrooper._

_He gets up and keeps moving along the blinking red line. Once he makes it to the closest evacuation point, he’s hoping to find someone—anyone—else. He can’t be the only thing left alive on this ship._

_Can he?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to **englishable** for helping me keep all the plot threads untangled!


End file.
